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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 123:3 - 123:3
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The second strophe takes up the “be gracious unto us” as it were in echo. It begins with a Kyrie eleison, which is confirmed in a crescendo manner after the form of steps. The church is already abundantly satiated with ignominy. רַב is an abstract “much,” and רַבָּה, Psa 62:3, something great (vid., Böttcher, Lehrbuch, §624). The subjectivizing, intensive לָהּ accords with Psa 120:6 - probably an indication of one and the same author. בּוּז is strengthened by לַעַג, like בַּז in Eze 36:4. The article of הִלַּעַג is restrospectively demonstrative: full of such scorn of the haughty (Ew. §290, d). הַבּוּז is also retrospectively demonstrative; but since a repetition of the article for the fourth time would have been inelegant, the poet here says לגאיונים with the Lamed, which serves as a circumlocution of the genitive. The Masora reckons this word among the fifteen “words that are written as one and are to be read as two.” The Kerî runs viz., לִגְאֵי יֹונִים, superbis oppressorum (יֹונִים, part. Kal, like הַיֹּונָה Zep 3:1, and frequently). But apart from the consideration that instead of גְּאֵי, from the unknown גָּאֶה, it might more readily be pointed גֵּאֵי, from גֵּאֶה (a form of nouns indicating defects, contracted גֵּא), this genitival construction appears to be far-fetched, and, inasmuch as it makes a distinction among the oppressors, inappropriate. The poet surely meant לְגַֽאֲיֹונִים or לַגַּֽאֲיֹונִים. This word גַּֽאֲיֹון (after the form רַעְיֹון, אֶבְיֹון, עֶלְיֹון) is perhaps an intentional new formation of the poet. Saadia interprets it after the Talmudic לֶגְיֹון, legio; but how could one expect to find such a Grecized Latin word (λεγεών) in the Psalter! dunash ben-Labrat (about 960) regards גאיונים as a compound word in the signification of הַגֵּאִים הַיֹונִים. In fact the poet may have chosen the otherwise unused adjectival form גַּֽאֲיֹונִים because it reminds one of יֹונִים, although it is not a compound word like דִּבְיֹונִים. If the Psalm is a Maccabaean Psalm, it is natural to find in לגאיונים an allusion to the despotic domination of the יְוָנִים.